I have some specific responses to a post by Richard Dixon,
which I will interleave with lines from his post:

> On Oct 27, 2006, at 5:15 PM, Richard Dixon wrote:

> "No college student could commit such a distortion and
> escape censure. As always, the lower the violator is on the
  > totem pole, the easier it is to pile on."

This comment is written out of ignorance of conditions at
modern universities.  Most academics that I know go out of
their way to be scrupulously fair to their students.  No one
goes into the teaching academy for the money, and pretty much
everyone who has pursued that route has foregone more
lucrative careers elsewhere.  Professors in the vast majority
of academic positions are there because they love what they
do, and because they believe that what they do, in the class
room and as scholars, matters. Many effective teachers
empathize with their students, and as a consequence do not
assume a stance of righteous anger when confronted with
violations of academic integrity.

But even if a professor was inclined to censure unfairly (or
fairly, for that matter) his undergraduate students, it would
be really hard to do.  There are bad eggs in any profession,
and some professors are mean-spirited--but the safe guards
against abuse of undergraduates make enforcement of plagiarism
standards, if anything, far too difficult.  Most sensible
instructors handle plagiarism informally, because the formal
academic process is cumbersome, and because, correctly, it
presumes the innocence of the accused and affords them due
process rights.  In many universities, I suspect its about as
easy to end the tenure of a scholar who commits academic
fraud, like Michael Bellesiles, as it is to expel an
undergraduate for academic cheating.

"Can anyone cite an instance of condemnation from academics
when fellow academics are caught?"

Sure.  Take a look at the excellent and widely publicized book
by Peter Charles Hoffer:  Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions,
Frauds - American History From Bancroft And Parkman To
Ambrose, Bellisles, Ellis, And Goodwin.  Hoffer documents the
responses by responsible academics to academic misconduct in
some detail, in a variety of recent cases.  The profession can
certainly do better--but its not by any stretch of the
imagination in the kind of disarray that Mr. Dixon's question
implies.

For a really good example of the handling of problematic
academic research, take a look at the way the William and Mary
Quarterly dealt with evidence of over-whelming academic error
in a recent publication of the Denmark Vesey trial records.

All best,
Kevin
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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